I’m using an old pair of Sony MDR-V600’s (made in Japan) for tracking, which have good extension in the lower and upper frequencies. Small eq adjustments anywhere in the spectrum are very apparent when using them. They can’t take a ton of bass at louder volume, but I really like them otherwise. I literally wore my first pair to bits before finding another pair some years back. The made in Taiwan version is crap, which I also tried and sent back years ago.
Monitors are some cheapy JBL 305P MKII’s. The highs are too smooth with some resonance in the low mids. Eq adjustments aren’t nearly as apparent as on the MDR-V600’s, especially in the upper frequencies. I’m also not a fan of them having built-in DSP due to added latency that compounds with interface latency and plugin latency. They do reach impressive volume for their size when playing back commercial tracks, but the volume isn’t much of a plus for tracking due to the lesser higher frequency response and low mid resonance. I caught a good deal on these, but they might be going back, if I can find something significantly better for under ~$500. I have an old pair of passive Alesis Monitor One’s, but one gave up a tweeter. And I gifted a pair of Behringer Truth B2031’s to the girlfriend for general music listening, which pretty much have he same issues for tracking as the 305P MKII’s, and bass extension isn’t great without some heavy eq help.
I have those, (edit: Sorry I actually have the old MKIs, from 2014-15 or so)
love them for playing music or movies as well
They sound much fuller and louder with a sub
JBL make one to suit, but I had a Boss Bass Cube that we weren’t using so I ran a mono sub feed into the aux on that, and it worked perfectly
The usual suspects in this sort of category (the being a bit better than 305p category that is), are the Kali LP-6. I’ve got a few of those in studio’s. Punch well above their weight.
The Adam T5-V and T7-V are also good candidates.
It’s tricky getting anything really good without DSP, unless you stump up for something like the Neumann KH-120a like I did.
Actually amazing value for $2000 a pair, but it’s still a lot of money.
The KH-120a is the earlier version, no DSP. The KH-120 II is a little larger, a little flatter in frequency response, a little deeper in bass response, and has inbuilt DSP and room correction capabilities.
Amazingly, the new one actually manages to be better than this (KH-120a frequency response shown)
That’s the set I’ve got.
Neumann actually provide spinorama data for their speakers. Well, I guess there is an incentive when you’re better than basically anything else that exists!
The thing I really noticed with these speakers is something isn’t so obvious from looking at the specifications. Never before have I heard such clear distortion free bass. It’s just a different sound to lesser speakers.
I mean, it’s not just the bass either. Nothing gets lost in resonances or drowned out by inflated parts of the frequency spectrum.
Micheal Brauer used a Sony boom box when mixing his worldwide smashes. He had other monitors but preferred them in a similar way people like NS-10s… if it sounds good on them then it’ll sound good anywhere. Him and Charles Dye are right up there with the greatest audio mojo code crackers.
I just use headphones and set levels in mono. Acoustic treatment is cheap.
I have a massive Accugroove El Whappo bass speaker which is like a huge flattish monitor with extended bass, which I feed with a Crown K2 fanless power amp
I use that for FRFR guitar and bass, but it sounds sick with music cranked too
Mono only though, but I aren’t buying another one
Everything is relative. Setting our brains with reference tracks cures imperfect response curves in the physical world which is all this shit is all about.
Our brains are flexible like that, but no infinitely so, and there is no certainty that any given degradation is fidelity is beneficial to the process rather than harmful.
Using an NS-10 doesn’t guarantee better, or even just good results.
But there are not right or wrong answers in the subjective world of art. Only what helps you make something that you or other like the sound of… or not if your objective is to annoy people (what was that John Frusciante solo album called?)
Oh, also, nothing beats a super woofer! That is an objectively true thing.
I read that the MKII’s are essentially the same as the first version, mostly just being a rename and very minor updates (including the yuck shiny front baffles on the new version). I’m also reading that these monitors are considered to be on the bright side, which isn’t how I perceive them. How do you perceive them? Maybe that is just the nature of nearfields. I’m less bothered by the low mids resonance. I might leave well enough alone rather than chasing a dragon for better low budget monitors. It was hard to argue with the price at $215. And what I’m reading, the 6" and 8" versions have low mid issues too, until crossing over with a sub. They do sound good for playing back music with surprising output for such small speakers.
I had been reading some reviews over there. Amirm seems to be pretty forgiving on speaker reviews. hardisj (Erin) seems to be more critical, and I should have read is review first.
The main thing I would want changed from these 305’s is more level from upper mids to highs for tracking, accuracy be damned for mixing.
